


Urchin

by kalevalaSage



Category: Fable (Video Games), Fable 3 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Reminiscing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 04:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalevalaSage/pseuds/kalevalaSage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Page angsts; Ben Finn listens.  Ben tries to comfort her; Page won't permit it.  Ben falls in love with her; Page won't permit that, either.  Les Mis is quoted extensively to draw comparisons between Page and Gavroche but really she's much closer to Feuilly if we're going to go in that direction.  Rated for a little threat of violence and because I dropped the V word I guess??</p>
            </blockquote>





	Urchin

**Author's Note:**

> Fable III belongs to Peter Molyneux, but that was a given; less expected for a Fable fic, the original Les Misérables, and the English translation thereof belong to Victor Hugo and Norman Denny respectively. Though I did contextualize the translations a little (sorry if that’s not kosher!). 
> 
> This is my first fanfiction. Ever.

_“Donnez à un être l’inutile et ôtez-lui le nécessaire, vous aurez le gamin.” –Marius, Tome I, Chapitre III  
(Give a being what is superfluous, deprive him of what is needful, and you have a “_ gamin _.”)_

Whenever she told her story, it seemed to Ben, she really ought to have been hungrier than she admitted.

"I mean,  _yes_ , I struggled to feed myself," Page might respond, rebuffing his skepticism in a good mood, confusion creasing her brow more than anger, "but in that regard I was better off than most.  I wasn't in want of a job, not then, at least."

Another day, she might snap back at him, mixing guilt and malice in her retort.  "I'm not trying to sound like a starving martyr, I'm trying to be of  _aid_.  To the  _poor_.  Who  _need_  people like me.  I'd never argue that hunger and oppression make saints—how could I once I took a look at  _you_ , Finn?"  Page would stand for the triumph of literacy over poverty, perhaps, but never a "simple" ascension from the slums to greatness.  That is, she'd fight to the death to feed the masses, but set higher bars for friends.  Ben supposed that was why they weren't friends.  It was probably an inevitable prejudice for one raised by ascetics on what amounted to charity, but it was still irksome to have such a prejudice harboured against him.

"And besides," she would continue, "I was otherwise occupied.  What I needed, far more than food, was education, so that's what I sought on my own.  Because, what is a content stomach without an eager mind?  Wasted energy, that's what.  It will live another day to accomplish nothing.  It's wasted potential."

She did tend to get a bit preachy.

But her message, howevermuch Ben hated it, would ring loud and clear in his ears: Page made a habit of calling him out on everything she stood against, of dubbing him  _dimwit soldier_  and  _immoral louse_ , of dashing his hopes that they could bond over common pasts, over their rises to glory.

 --

_“Le gamin est une grâce pour la nation, et en même temps une maladie.  Maladie qu’il fait guérir.  Comment?  Par la lumière.” –Marius, Tome I, Chapitre X  
(The_   _“_ gamin _” is at once a national emblem and a disease.  A disease that must be cured.  How?  By light.  Light that makes whole.  Lights that enlightens.)_

"Tell me," Ben would ask, as gently as he could, dying to unravel her secrets.  "Just tell me...tell me your birth name."

"I don't want to talk about it.  You know who I am now, isn't that enough?  I'm not...very happy with...who I used to be."

So she was still feeling guilty about being raised in that monastery.  He couldn't even remember how he had managed to pry  _that_  information from her.

"What, you think I'm proud of everything I've ever done?  Of helping my brothers pickpocket, or of being a gambler and a smuggler and a drinker, or of the probable colony of little blond Finns running about the countryside, never to know their father?"

"And  _you_  think I'd  _trust_  someone like that with the story of my  _childhood_."

Ben lets some silence creep in here, the better to make Page feel guilty for her words.  Then he realizes it isn't going to happen.  Still, even if their relationship doesn't extend beyond the minutes he lingers after a Resistance meeting, he cares for her too much to be as offended as he should be.

"It wasn't handouts.  You deserved it.  You worked hard to help yourself.  You were a pitiable child.  You  _adored_  books—the books that were everything the monks stood for.  You were more  _worthy_."  It was the wrong thing to say.  His words were always the wrong thing to say.

"I was more  _worthy_?"  Page practically spits at this, and Ben realizes exactly where his diction went wrong, but it's too late now.  "I had a desire to learn.  About the world, and about where we went wrong, and how we— _we_ , street-urchins—came to be.  My friends at the factory—they laughed at my thoughts of revolution, and I wanted to prove their laughter wrong.  But I  _left them to hopelessness_.   _Retreated_  to my monastery.  For my own— _selfish_ —personal betterment.  And I'm blessed to have reaped as much as I did from that experience, but I  _can't_  care for the birth-named girl I was then."

"Page, I'm sorry, Page, I just—"  It doesn't even matter that there are holes in her arguments.  It wouldn't do now to point out that she needed to have left the streets to learn her philosophies, and to learn how to fight.  All that matters is calming her down.

"The other name isn't important.  The other name was an act of charity.  Given to me.  'Page' is what I made for everyone else."

 --

_“Mêlée au bon sens, elle lui ajoute parfois de la force, come l’alcool au vin.” –Marius, Tome I, Chapitre IX  
(“_ Gaminerie _” is good sense to which a certain pungency is sometimes added, like the alcohol in wine.)_

There might be a shadow of a smile on Page's lips, but it doesn't reach those dismissive cold, dark eyes.  "My only consolation is that, compared to you, I take the moral high ground."

That stings.  Ben's used to this kind of abuse from Page, but this touches a nerve. When he speaks, his voice is more aggressive than he means it to be.

"Look.  I'm the best person I can be, okay?  But maybe that isn't good enough for you, who grew up as destitute and orphaned as me and came out with nothing more than a guilty conscience and a streak for hypocrisy."

"Hypocrisy."

"Yeah.  You love Bowerstone and you love your people unconditionally and you always have a smile, if not a coin, for a beggar.  But up close, you're far more judgmental than that, aren't you?"

"They need food and shelter.  Everyone deserves food and shelter.  You already have that much sorted.  You can be a better man."

"But that's not even what you wanted for yourself, growing up in Bowerstone Industrial, casting a line for old newspapers instead of fish.  You're gifted with literacy and philosophy, and you think that puts you on some kind of pedestal, from which to judge the world.  And our paths aren't as disparate as you would think.  I collected the books I could, too.  They just happened to be adventure stories, of Heroes and gunmen.  All luck has ever granted me is a  _flair with guns_.  Which of us do you  _think_  will more closely resemble an angel?  You're not being fair, Page."

Ben tries not to grin as, for once, the anger dissolves from Page's face.

 --

_“La gaminerie parisienne est presque une caste.  On pourrait dire: n’en est pas qui veut” –Marius, Tome I, Chapitre VII  
(The “_ gaminerie _” are almost a caste of which it may be said, ‘not everyone can join.’)_

"It's not just because I'm not a virgin, is it?"

Page snorts at this.  "You're so far away from being a virgin that I'm amazed you can even remember that long-gone word."

"Or a soldier."

Page has to sigh here, and shaking her head in remorse when she knows she's been wrong.  She's been doing that a lot more recently.  Ben wants to giggle every time he sees her dreadlocks flail like that, but he doesn't dare, for fear she'd revert to old, angry Page.

"You and Major Swift have redeemed yourselves well enough.  I can tolerate soldiers."

"Then what?  I'm practically devoted to you.  I've never done you wrong.  And you don't hate me; we get along fine.  Just let me hold your hand, I'll take you...I'll take you to the statue in the Bowerstone Old Quarter, and we can talk, and you can think..."

"The answer is no, Benjamin."

 --

_“Jéhovah present, il sauterait à cloche-pied les marches du paradis.” –Marius, Tome I, Chapitre IX  
(If Jehovah beckoned, he would go scampering up the steps of Paradise.)_

Ben is an explosion of blond and mania at four in the morning, and his audacity evidences his inebriation.  He has a headache and an encouraging buzz, but isn't drunk—too much depends on this encounter to be drunk.  He might make worse choices than sneaking into the rebel headquarters at the most inconvenient time of night to shake awake a sleeping revolutionary.

"Page.  I've figured you out."

Page's hand goes right to her pistol.  Page's pistol goes right to his forehead.   Damn.  Lately, Ben's been forgetting Page was ever a rascal on the street, lost in his mental exaggerations of her aristocratic demeanour.  Aristocrats aren't conditioned to snap to alertness at the merest noise, but Page is.

"Ohmygod.  It's me!  It's Ben.  Don't shoot."

"...Ben."

"Yes.  Ben.  I've figured you out."

"You're in  _love_  with me.  And you're  _trespassing_."

Ben looks down and blinks a moment before meeting Page's eyes.  She's gotten up from her mattress and affixed her hands to her hips, but she's put the gun away at least.

"You're afraid I'm the wandering type."

"You're not—"

"Oh, hell, not  _that_  kind of wandering.  You're afraid—that if you admit you love me—I'll be done here.  I'll want to adventure.  And you won't get to do your philanthropy thing here anymore, and your books and thoughts and revolutions will be sacrificed to my gift with guns, and I'll take you away from Bowerstone and you're scared."

Page doesn't say anything for a moment.  Then she tiptoes up to his height and Ben leans in to kiss her, but she pulls back and sniffs.  "Yup, you're drunk."

Ben looks affronted.  "I know how to hold my liquor."  Page just stares, so he continues, the words a blur.  "The Crawler's coming.  I want to take you away.  You won't have to be afraid.  I can take you someplace safe."

"I belong here," Page whispers.

"I know."

"No," she says, still quietly but with confidence this time.  "No, you don't."

Ben Finn hears Angry Page returning to this woman's tone, so he turns to leave.

"Don't shoot me in the back.  I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow."


End file.
